da fezbet： Take away the pressure and Zimbabwe play better
da pixbet： John Ward22-Mar-2003Take away the pressure and Zimbabwe play better. They did much better forthree-quarters of their final World Cup match of 2003 against Sri Lankabefore collapsing to give Sri Lanka a rather easy victory in the end by 76runs.The turning point of the match, as so often but now for the last time, wasthe dismissal of Andy Flower. Zimbabwe were looking on course to challengethe Sri Lankan total of 256, with the Flower brothers together, but it wasone of those instances where an umpiring error turned the match. UmpireBrian Jerling gave Andy out lbw, failing to detect an inside edge on to thepad, and that brought Andy’s international career to an end. But it can besaid that a side that packed in so quickly after that error didn’t reallydeserve to win anyway.But at least Zimbabwe looked a better team this time that the sombre crewthat took the field against Kenya. Sri Lanka batted on winning the toss,but a combination of a slow East London pitch, not ideal for a one-daymatch, and accurate seam bowling, especially by Heath Streak, made scoringdifficult. Perhaps there was also for them the pressure of knowing theirfuture in this World Cup depended on the result. Against Zimbabwe they maywell have decided to play it safely, ensure a satisfactory total rather thangamble on a high one, and trust their bowlers to remove Zimbabwe’s fragilebatting.It was a policy that might have got them into trouble had it not been forthe Andy Flower dismissal. Zimbabwe did their best to give Andy a memorablefinale to his great international career with a victory and showed morevibrancy in the field than they did against Kenya – where they could hardlyhave shown less.They gave Travis Friend and Stuart Matsikenyeri their first games of thecompetition, but Alistair Campbell was one of the casualties expected tostand down. This meant yet another opening partner for Craig Wishart -believe it or not, his fifth in eight matches. He has opened in turn withMark Vermeulen, Guy Whittall, Vermeulen again, Dion Ebrahim, Campbell andnow it was Doug Marillier’s turn. Any comment on selection policies here issuperfluous.Wishart himself has not made the most of this tournament since his recordinnings against the weak Namibian team. Time and again he has done the hardwork, made a start and then lost his wicket: after 172 not out, his scoreshave been 12, 10, 21, 30, 5 and now 43. What a waste! He has been dumpedby the selectors numerous times during his career, and they may well takethe excuse to do so again. He has the talent to succeed against anybowling, but has only partially done so, and he may well regret his failureto make his place in the side rock-sure when he had the chance.Zimbabwe’s bowlers did a good job until the pressure mounted at the end ofthe Sri Lankan innings. Then the batsmen cut loose, with Kumar Sangakkarathe most outstanding, and they wilted. However they were not alone in thisas the New Zealand bowlers had nothing to be proud of when Streak took themapart two matches earlier.There seemed to be more vitality in the fielding, too. There were somegreat saves by several players, but on the debit side there were missedcatches.Zimbabwe began their run-chase superbly. Their batting against Kenya hadseemed quite brainless. If they had expected to go in and help themselvesthen, they were soon disillusioned, and if such a realistic Plan A existed,where was Plan B? Or maybe Plan B was simply ‘chuck your wicket away’.But now we had Wishart and Marillier taking the attack to the bowlers,driving with confidence even on a pitch not best suited to it. EvenChaminda Vaas, so long a thorn in Zimbabwe’s side, came under attack andtemporarily lost his accuracy. There was some good running between thewickets, another aspect of batsmanship that had apparently been thrown outof the window against Kenya.Travis Friend did a good, if brief, job at number three with 21 off 20balls, and with the Flower brothers in command Zimbabwe needed at one stage117 to win in 22 overs with seven wickets left. Then came the umpire’sfinger of doom, and Zimbabwe quickly subsided.Andy Blignaut was Zimbabwe’s hope when he came in at 150 for five, thenStreak at 178 for seven, but both fell quickly and tamely. Only GrantFlower and Sean Ervine held up the march of the Sri Lankans at all; theothers hastened back to the pavilion in no time.The post-Andy Flower era is upon us. It will be an era of unreliablebatting and sorry collapses – unless we can find specialist batsmen willingto put their hands up and take responsibility as Andy did. Perhaps somebodywill rise to the occasion, but at the moment there is no sign of it.Finally, how about this for an alternative Zimbabwe eleven? Johnson,Madondo, Goodwin, Hick, Andy Flower, Penney, Paul Strang, Andrew Whittall,Bryan Strang, Adam Huckle and Brighton Watambwa; twelfth man EvertonMatambanadzo.This now is a full team of players who should be available for Zimbabweright now but are not. Trevor Madondo (sadly dead) and Paul Strang(long-term arm injury) cannot play for reasons beyond their control; therest chose to leave over the years. We now need those who have remainedfaithful to Zimbabwe to make sure they use their talents to the full and donot let Zimbabwe down.This is not really happening at the moment. We may be short of talentcompared to eight other countries, but we have enough potential talent to bedoing far better than we are at the moment. At least there is someimprovement in that we were competitive for most of the match against SriLanka. It is sad we couldn’t have been competitive to the end. If we had,we might still have lost, but it would have been a thriller.Guys, we need players who relish the pressure, relish the fight, relish theresponsibility. Where are you?
